Reviews

The four piano trios in this disc have the courage of their convictions … all four are avowedly trios and none hides behind a so-often modishly lower case name. The quartet of trios also shares a compactness of structure and delineation into conventional movements. Well recorded, the performances are wholly sympathetic to the four composers’ idioms.

None of [the four composers] takes an extreme approach to composition, but there are plenty of stylistic differences to make for an interesting program. It’s nice to hear some music by con­temporary Irish composers that I wouldn’t have heard otherwise.

Although this is modern music and it does sound modern in places it’s never challenging. We’ve listened to this a number of times and it’s better on headphones or in a quiet room, the better to appreciate it. It does have a modern feel that reminded us of prog bands such as Rush, who take chances and vary the music.

The Fidelio Trio presents itself as a highly motivated ensemble of great skill. The audio recordings are well balanced and have a natural sound. Anybody liking accessible contemporary music will appreciate thesis recordings.

Clare Lesser proves to be particularly fine showing tremendous control and agility… a fine purity of tone, with remarkably fluent delivery and intensely fine control, achieving a rather otherworldly quality. She brings remarkable singing to the faster passages. The recording is first rate and there are excellent booklet notes. These performances of Finnissy’s quite remarkable songs are unlikely to be bettered.

Clare Lesser proves to be particularly fine showing tremendous control and agility… a fine purity of tone, with remarkably fluent delivery and intensely fine control, achieving a rather otherworldly quality. She brings remarkable singing to the faster passages.  The recording is first rate and there are excellent booklet notes. These performances of Finnissy’s quite remarkable songs are unlikely to be bettered.

No label has done more to champion Finnissy than Metier, whose latest CD Singular Voices, released yesterday, is their twelfth devoted to Finnissy’s music. Singular Voices is a beautiful collection of modern songwriting, one that forms a vital part in the ongoing understanding and appreciation of Michael Finnissy’s music. And while all three players are overwhelmingly sensitive to the considerable shifts in tone and manner presented in these pieces, Clare Lesser deserves especially high praise for a performance that’s so varied and nuanced it seems scarcely credible.

This is difficult music from a performance standpoint and all three do an excellent job realizing the complexities… remarkable virtuoso soprano performances. Confirmed modernists will rejoice! Sound adventurers will find this a very worthy challenge. It has helped me become a Finnissy adherent. Beautiful music if you adjust to its very expressive world!

Make no mistake, this is deeply serious, aggressively cutting-edge music that demands enor­mous reserves of patience and a highly developed sense of adventure.

I imagine that Gorton enjoys a good joke. In the landscape portrait for piano quintet, Fosdyke Wash , a sighing cello part is marked “like distant agricultural machinery.” At that point, the cello sounds like a mewling chainsaw at a far remove. Starting calmly over gently sustained piano pitches (using an ebow), a scordatura quartet […]

Orfordness may lie geographically in Benjamin Britten country, but the music inhabits a totally different landscape. There is a detailed programme underlying Gorton’s music, which is comprehensively explained in the booklet. [Fosdyke Wash] is music of a dangerous beauty which achieves a rapt stillness. It is the most recent music on the disc, and perhaps shows the composer turning in a new direction.

David Gorton’s program is wild, mysteri­ous, paranoid, dense, difficult, and rarely understated or straight-forward.

Gorton is clearly a clever chap… and uses instrumentation, electronics and samples. Discordant and unsettling.

[Marshall’s] music is radiantly tonal; one might even say valiantly traditional. It’s lux­ury casting to have tenor James Gilchrist as the vocalist here. His singing is pure joy. Gilchrist’s tone is golden and pure. Gilchrist’s evenness of tone over his range and his seamless legato, coupled with his understanding of the music at hand, leads to a near-hyp­notic experience. A most enjoyable disc.

Marshall stands in the distinguished line of English lyrical composers with countryside affinities and a songster’s gift for word-setting. His experimentation and originality are within the bounds of a benevolent tonal tradition… full of character. James Gilchrist – who sings on 26 of the 31 tracks – knows this style so well and this serves Marshall and the listener very well indeed. The sung words are reproduced in full and everything is presented with typographical clarity.

John Turner’s elegant playing figures prominently in five of the eight works on this recording. The compositions by English composer Nicholas Marshall carry on the lyrical, pastoral lineage so audible in Ralph Vaughn Williams’s music. Turner conveys the beauty and substance of that lineage with much grace. Tenor James Gilchrist sings with wonderful diction, such that the lyrics are crystal clear. His voice works marvellously with Turner’s recorder.

[Marshall’s] music is mostly tonal; any dissonances are very gentle. His tex­tures are uncluttered, and there’s a welcome simplicity to his ideas. I enjoyed hearing [the recorder’s] chance to shine in a more modern setting. The performances are all polished.

Marshall’s musical influences and talents are many and varied, and while certainly having his own inventive voice he follows in the musical footsteps of Warlock, Delius, Vaughan Williams and Sir Lennox Berkeley. James Gilchrist sings exquisitely, and Harvey Davies sounds equally at home on both harpsichord and piano. Two pieces for recorder and string quartet are played with attentive affection and deserve more attention from other recorder players out there!

West country born Nicholas Marshall is one of the many contemporary British composers who can write in traditional harmonies and tonality and yet produce music of freshness and which is of today. This album of premiere recordings showcases several song cycles with celebrated tenor James Gilchrist as well as the Concerto for Recorder and String […]

Music of this quality deserves and stimulates dedicated performances, which it duly receives on what is a very welcome disc. [The Concerto] is a particularly significant contribution to the recorder’s concerto repertoire… brilliantly effective recorder and string writing.